Waking Up Jesus.

Mark 4:35-41

June 24, 2018

I.

Jesus is teaching a crowd on the beach near Capernaum.  So many people are gathered to hear him that he has to get in a boat on the water, sit down, and talk from there.  He tells them the Parable of the Sower and some other shorter parables. 

When he finishes, he decides to sail across the lake to Gentile territory, even though night is falling.  So they push off from the shore.  Several other boats accompany them, so there’s this whole little flotilla moving away from the land.  Jesus, trusting the professional fishers like Peter and James to sail the boats, curls up on a cushion in the back and falls asleep.

This is the only instance of Jesus sleeping in Mark’s gospel.  In the rest of the New Testament, sleep is often a metaphor for death.  And, like the rest of the New Testament, this story is written for the early church after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  So, they would have related to the feeling of being sent on a mission by Jesus, who is now not present to them in the way they think they need him to be, and the way he was for a few years.  Jesus says he will be with them always, but if, as in this story, he’s so sound asleep in the back of the boat that even the turbulence of a cataclysmic storm doesn’t wake him, he might as well not be with them at all.

Maybe this is kind of a test for them.  Can they handle the mission without his direct leadership?  Can they even do something they are trained and experienced in doing, without his having to tell them what to do?  We are not even told what the mission is.  Maybe they are not completely clear on this either.  

I mean they are headed into non-Jewish territory.  They are moving out of their own comfort zone.  They will be encountering strangers and even enemies over there.  Perhaps Jesus’ intention is to spread the faith and win disciples among the Gentile people across the lake.  Maybe he wants to make the point that his mission is indeed to all nations and people.  In any case he is reaching out to those “other” people, people normally excluded, judged, mocked, and feared; people with whom Jews were not even allowed to share a meal.   

It’s a test for the church and for us as well.  Jesus has sent us on a mission.  There is a sense in which we too have embarked across the lake towards a distant somewhat aspirational goal of unity, inclusion, welcome, and compassion.  And sometimes it can feel like we are bereft of Jesus’ leadership and influence.  Like he’s here, sort of, but not having much influence.  We may feel in the dark and vulnerable, like we’re walking down a dark alley in an unfamiliar city.      

I have been in churches where Jesus was, at best, asleep in the back somewhere.  

What happens without Jesus’ voice is that we start listening again to our own voices.  Instead of God we listen to our egos and our own fear and desire.  Instead of obeying him, we try to figure things out for ourselves.  We follow our own leaders.  And this is always dangerous.  By our own reason we tend to replace his compassion with fear, judgment, and condemnation.   

II.   

In the story we see this happening in the form of a squall.  The wind increases; the waves get choppy and then start to swell.  The boats are tossed and thrown around, and start to take on water.  A lot of water.  And the storm increases to the point where even the veteran sailors are fearful for their lives; the boats are about to be swamped and sunk! 

This is not that surprising.  They had set out in response to Jesus’ command.  And this is what happens when the church is missing Jesus’ voice in its life, even for a little while.  Storms descend on us.  Fear weasels its way into our hearts.  Confusion and dissension reign.  The whole mission falters.  

When we try to make headway in Jesus’ mission on our own, even when we are experts at navigating this world, things can get dicey.  The world challenges us with resistance.  The gospel is never welcome to the principalities and powers that dominate human kingdoms.  They will resist and throw obstacles in our way.  And if our trust wavers we can simply sink into the water and disappear in the chaos of worldly existence.

Remember that in the Bible water is somewhat ambivalent.  It is certainly a necessary and blessed element of life; yet it also and more primally represents the chaotic maelstrom out of which God calls and shapes creation.  Furthermore, this lake like all bodies of water in the Roman Empire was claimed and taxed by Caesar, a fact that these people would have been bitterly aware of.  They are trespassing on Caesar’s property.  

But the whole creation is a product of God’s Word.  Without that Word, our life can disintegrate into a meaningless nothingness, indistinguishable from the sinful chaos that usually reigns among us.

The Word is the only thing keeping the church afloat.  And if the Word is asleep in the back of the boat, if the Word is not present and active, if the Word is not being heard and followed, if we are not awake to the living Presence of the Word among and within us, we perish.

Realizing this, the people in Jesus’ boat finally stumble back to wake him up.  “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?!” they yell over the gale.  How can you nap through this tumultuous disaster?  We’re all gonna die!!

In 12-step groups, this is called “hitting the bottom.”  The first step is to admit that you are powerless and your life has become unmanageable.  The second is to believe that a Power greater than yourself can save you.  The third is to turn your will and your life over to God.  On that boat on that night the third step means, go wake up Jesus!  Stat!

Sometimes we have to wake up Jesus in the church.  Somebody’s gotta go find him, wherever in this boat he is sleeping.  We will find him in this book, that simply doesn’t get opened enough in our homes or even in church.  We will find him on the Table.  We will find him in our hearts.  And we will find him in the needs of people around us, which is to say, the people to whom this voyage across the lake is directed in the first place.

  

III.

Jesus awakes.  He sits up and looks around at the situation of complete chaos and disorder, waves breaking over the gunnels, water sloshing on the deck, people screaming, the sail flapping in the gale, the whole boat violently rocking and rolling. 

I imagine him sighing and shaking his head, “Really?”  Then he speaks, he talks to the wind and the sea!  He tells them to knock it off.  “Peace!  Be still!” he says.  “Chill!”  

And immediately the wind dies down to nothing, and the lake settles down to become as smooth as glass, calmly reflecting the stars and the moon appearing in the sky as the clouds disperse.  The boat gently swaying.  It’s just a delightful night.

And he turns to the astonished people, and says, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  What is it with you people?  I doze off for 5 minutes and you let your fear cause all hell to break lose.  Do I have to hold everything together every second?  Where is your faith?  Your fear is what concocted that storm.  You’re afraid of this weird mission across the lake to those other people.  I get that.  But didn’t you believe me when I told you about the Kingdom of God?  Where is your faith?  This isn’t just about me.  I’m not going to be walking around here with you as a mortal forever.  I have come to show you what is within you and among you.  You’re going to have to get over this fear thing before it kills you. 

Jesus talks about their faith.  He is trying to awaken something within them, like he tells people he has healed that it was their faith that made them well.  He wants to jumpstart the trust in him that is already inside them but they don’t realize it.  They don’t get that he has come to change the world by changing them.  By informing them of who they really are: blessed, holy, good, and true people, children of God, offspring of the Creator, siblings of him, the Messiah of Israel. 

Our faith, our trust in Jesus, our cherishing of his words and teachings, our life together in a gospel community, our participation in his Body and Blood… these are ways in which his voice remains present and active and powerful among us and within us.  Our faith is what prevents our fear; our fear is what proves our lack of faith.   

IV.

Waking up Jesus means waking ourselves to Jesus living presence.  We have to wake up Jesus within us, which means waking up to who we truly are.  For we are not who we think we are and we are not who the world tells us we are.  We belong to God.  

To follow Jesus is to invite and attract turbulence.  Losing your old self is traumatic; taking up your cross is a high stress enterprise.  You cannot follow Jesus without attracting the suspicion and even hostility of the world.  This lake we’re sailing on?  Caesar thinks it’s his.  The powers and principalities want us to stay on our side of the lake and not to bother with those other people.  They’re aliens.  They’re enemies.  They talk funny and eat weird food.  Be afraid; be very afraid!

But to trust in Jesus is to be immune to fear.  And if fear no longer divides us, we emerge into the unity where our divisions are dissolved in God’s love, and there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female.  We are all one.  It’s not Caesar’s lake; it’s God’s lake and therefore our lake.  There are no enemies, only people who haven’t heard the good news yet that all are one in Christ Jesus.

“Who is this, then, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  Who indeed?  Who is this, who has the power to still the storm and neutralize our fear with a word?  He is the Word, Jesus Christ.  And we are his.

+++++++